The 2026 U.S. experience in the Middle East reinforces a core doctrinal truth: logistics failure rarely manifests as sudden collapse. It emerges as friction across a system of systems.

NZDF doctrine defines logistics as the science of planning and executing the movement and sustainment of forces, encompassing supply, transport, maintenance, infrastructure, and services. More importantly, it frames logistics as a network of interdependent nodes and flows operating across strategic, operational, and tactical levels. These systems do not operate themselves. Their effectiveness depends on the people who plan, manage, adapt, and recover them under pressure.

The 2026 U.S. experience illustrates how sustainment failure actually appears. It does not begin with a dramatic ammunition blackout. It appears first as friction: delayed replenishment, reduced menus, suspended mail, and the quiet disappearance of “minor” items such as toiletries, clothing, and batteries.

Reporting in April 2026, drawing on service members’ accounts and imagery from deployed vessels such as USS Tripoli and USS Abraham Lincoln, described reduced food availability and the suspension of military mail services. Official responses rejected claims of outright shortages, but conceded a more important point: replenishment can be delayed by operations, weather, and access constraints, and consumption must then adjust accordingly.

This pattern was anticipated decades earlier. A 1994 Naval War College study identified U.S. logistics as a centre of gravity and outlined how attacks on ports, airfields, and pre-positioned depots could degrade operations without destroying the system.[1] More recent reporting confirms that key nodes such as Bahrain and Jebel Ali remain central to sustainment architecture.[2]

In 2026, Iranian strikes appear to have validated that model. Rather than destroying logistics outright, they disrupted and displaced it, translating operational pressure into day-to-day scarcity at the user end, precisely where morale and endurance reside.

The critical point is not collapse. It is adaptation under pressure. Friction is absorbed by people, planners, maintainers, and operators who compensate for delay, scarcity, and uncertainty.

Maritime Nations and the Wider Logistics Shock

The conflict also demonstrates that military logistics cannot be separated from the commercial systems that sustain it. Disruption in the Gulf affected shipping routes, fuel distribution, insurance costs, and port access.

For a maritime nation such as New Zealand, this has direct implications. Deployed forces rely on:

• commercial shipping networks
• fuel supply chains
• host-nation infrastructure
• coalition logistics hubs

The vulnerability sits not just within the force, but across the system sustaining it and four structural realities emerge:

First, geography is no longer protection.
Long-range strike and persistent ISR mean rear areas are targetable. Distance now creates fragility, not safety.

Second, forward deployments become liabilities.
Small, externally sustained forces are vulnerable not at the point of contact, but along the chain that supports them.

Third, maritime dependence amplifies risk.
Sea-based sustainment creates predictability, concentration, and exposure through dual-use infrastructure.

Fourth, host-nation dependence becomes critical.
Allied and commercial nodes do not need to be destroyed, only disrupted.

The problem therefore shifts. The question is no longer whether a force can deploy, but whether it can sustain operations under continuous pressure.

For New Zealand, endurance will fail before combat capability. The decisive factor becomes recovery and adaptation, not initial resilience.

The Historical Pattern: Forward Logistics

This is not new. New Zealand’s wartime logisticians understood it clearly. In the First World War, the New Zealand Ordnance Depot at Farringdon Road supported national requirements within the British system. In the Second World War, this expanded into a distributed network across Egypt, Italy, and the Pacific.

These systems were not just stockpiles. They were forward, semi-autonomous sustainment networks combining:

• inventory depth
• distribution capability
• repair and maintenance
• trained personnel

Each layer of autonomy required more people and more stock. That was the trade-off: resilience through forward capacity.

This pattern continued post-war through Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, and East Timor. Even within coalition systems, New Zealand maintained identifiable national logistics elements.

The conclusion was consistent: forward operations required forward sustainment.

The Contemporary Posture

Open-source evidence suggests a different balance today. The 2010 civilianisation programme shifted approximately 1,400 military roles, including logistics functions, into civilian positions. Procurement data shows heavy reliance on Defence Commercial Services, while major functions such as warehousing, maintenance, and catering are now intertwined with commercial providers.

This reflects a broader Western trend: efficiency in peacetime through outsourcing and centralisation. The issue is not efficiency itself. It is resilience under disruption.

Recent reporting indicates some rebalancing, including increased inventory holdings following global supply shocks. However, public data does not demonstrate the existence of deep, deployable reserve stocks on the historical model.

The key question is therefore practical, if commercial systems are disrupted, does the Army retain the uniformed depth and organisational capacity to assume and sustain those functions? 

The 2026 American warning

The most useful way to read the 2026 U.S. reporting is not as a morality tale about poor catering, but as a case study in how contested logistics become visible to ordinary service members. The Independent reported that U.S. personnel in the Middle East were facing food shortages, that families were sending care packages containing food and other essentials, and that a suspended military mail service was delaying those packages. The article also noted that more than 50,000 U.S. service members were in the region and that some vessels had not made port since the war began.[3] NDTV’s account, likewise drawing on the same underlying reporting, highlighted nearly empty trays, complaints about the absence of fresh produce, and reliance on families for supplements.[4] Official United States Postal Service (USPS) alerts independently confirmed that, effective 7 April 2026, service to multiple military post office ZIP codes had been temporarily suspended; by late April, USPS still listed 26 military ZIP codes as suspended. That is a logistics fact, not a rumour.[5]

The U.S. Navy’s rebuttal matters too, because it clarifies the mechanism. Adm. Daryl Caudle said deployed ships had at least ten days of food, and most had more than thirty days, while the U.S. Navy and the Secretary of Defence rejected the “food shortage” framing. Yet Stars and Stripes and Navy Times both reported something equally important: culinary specialists acknowledged that orders can be pushed right when operations intervene, that replenishment can arrive weeks late, and that menus are modified until new deliveries come in. In other words, the official rebuttal did not eliminate sustainment friction; it narrowed the claim from “starvation” to “delay and adaptation.” That distinction is analytically crucial. In war, the logistics system need not implode to matter. It merely has to be hard enough to impose scarcity, uncertainty, and degraded morale.[6]

This was exactly the logic of Peter Scala’s Naval War College paper, U.S. Logistics Vulnerability: Major Regional Conflict with Iran. Scala argued that U.S. “logistics might” was one of America’s centres of gravity and built a scenario in which attacks on airfields, ports, and pre-positioned assets in Bahrain and Kuwait would distract, delay, and degrade U.S. operations.[7] The paper’s specifics belong to the early 1990s. Still, its core proposition has aged well: when long-distance power projection depends on predictable flows through a small number of hubs, the theatre logistic network itself becomes a prime target. Official Military Sealift Command reporting from 2025 reinforces this point by showing that combat logistics force vessels were loading ammunition in Bahrain, providing fuel support in the Gulf, and using Jebel Ali for readiness and repair tasks. That is the architecture an adversary studies.[8]

Joint doctrine states the broader principle in a less dramatic but equally important way. The Joint Staff still describes logistics as the keystone of joint logistics, while Army sustainment doctrine defines the sustainment warfighting function as enabling freedom of action, extending operational reach, and prolonging endurance.[9] The 2026 episode is therefore not a contradiction of doctrine. It is doctrine made concrete. Beans, mail, hygiene items, spare clothing, and batteries are not peripheral to combat endurance; they are its daily expression. 

Why New Zealand’s wartime logisticians built forward

New Zealand’s historical practice began from a hard truth: coalition integration did not remove national requirements. In the First World War, the NZEF could fit into the British imperial system, but the need for New Zealand-specific items was still recognised. That drove the establishment of the New Zealand Ordnance Depot at 30–32 Farringdon Road in London in late 1916, close to headquarters and rail access, so that NZ camps, hospitals, and establishments in Britain could be supported through a national node.[10] This was not a sign of mistrust in allies. It was an acknowledgement that national issue scales, accounting, clothing, and special stores always leave residual sovereign demand. 

The same logic expanded in the Second World War. The 2nd NZEF Base Ordnance Depot in Egypt, later split between base and advance functions into Italy, was the primary ordnance organisation sustaining New Zealand forces from 1940 to 1946.[11] In the Pacific,  NZAOC material shows a parallel depot logic: a Base Ordnance Depot in New Caledonia, an Advanced Ordnance Depot in Guadalcanal, and a forward depot at Vella Lavella. The 1943–44 reports are striking because they discuss not just locations, but the economics of depth. Each new sub-depot required more personnel and larger store holdings to create working margins. That is the classical logistics trade-off: autonomy buys resilience, but only by carrying inventory and people forward.[12] Crucially, these systems required not just stockholding, but trained personnel at scale, able to manage inventory, control distribution, conduct repairs, and adapt to disruption close to the point of use.

These systems were multi-corps mechanisms, not just warehouses. Historically, the service corps carried rations, POL, and movements; ordnance controlled stocks, accounting, and issue of clothing and camp equipment, and much of the materiel system; engineers provided electrical and mechanical support, repairing and recovering vehicles and equipment. Later examples make those roles explicit. The ANZUK Supply Platoon, for instance, existed to provide foodstuffs and POL to the force.[13] While NZDF’s own combat service support output descriptions continued to separate transport, supply, maintenance support, and movements as distinct support functions.

The post-1945 record matters because it shows that New Zealand did not abandon forward logistics once mass armies disappeared. In occupied Japan, New Zealand’s 4 Forward Ordnance Depot, later 4 New Zealand Advanced Ordnance Depot at Chofu, sat inside a broader British Commonwealth Occupation Force structure that also had a multinational base ordnance depot at Kure. This was an integrated Commonwealth system, but it still included dedicated New Zealand ordnance elements. In Vietnam, New Zealand’s Logistic Support Element was embedded in the 1st Australian Logistic Support Group at Vung Tau from 1966; this was not full sovereign support, but it was still a recognised national logistic framework inside an allied base.

The more important shift came with the impending British withdrawal east of Suez. In 1970, New Zealand joined Australia in establishing 5 Advanced Ordnance Depots in Singapore. In 1971. That became the tri-national ANZUK Ordnance Depot, which by 1972 held roughly 45,000 line items. When ANZUK ended, New Zealand converted its share into the New Zealand Advanced Ordnance Depot, which remained in Singapore until 1989. In parallel, supply functions continued through an ANZUK Supply Platoon and then a New Zealand supply depot. This is the clearest postwar evidence that New Zealand’s logisticians concluded that a persistent forward presence required a real forward sustainment system, not merely rear-area faith in allied benevolence.

East Timor confirmed the enduring pattern. New Zealand’s initial deployment flowed through Darwin, with RNZAF Hercules flights shuttling personnel and stores between Darwin, Dili, and the NZ battalion operating base at Suai. The architecture was smaller than Singapore’s depot-era footprint. Still, the operational logic was the same: forward support, intermediate mounting, and theatre sustainment cannot be improvised from home stations alone.

The table’s qualifiers are necessarily qualitative, because public New Zealand data do not disclose deployable stock levels or theatre reserve holdings. But the structural contrast is unmistakable: historical New Zealand practice repeatedly created forward depots with identifiable stocks and geography; the contemporary public record describes systems, contracts, facilities, and processes far more than it describes forward-positioned reserve depth.

The present New Zealand posture

The strongest open-source evidence for a thinner uniformed support base is the 2010 civilianisation program. The Office of the Auditor-General reported that NZDF committed to converting 1,400 military positions in the “middle” and “back” into civilian positions, explicitly including logistics and training. The stated aim was to move more military people to the deployable “front.” The Auditor-General also concluded that the project contributed to reduced capability and that NZDF then had to recover from the damage.[14] That does not prove the disappearance of second-line logistics. It does prove that, in the name of efficiency and force rebalancing, New Zealand deliberately reduced the military share of its support structure. 

Public procurement evidence points in the same direction. A Defence industry study noted that Defence Logistics Command managed roughly 85 percent of NZDF procurement and that around 60 percent of that was handled through Defence Commercial Services.[15] More recently, the Ministry of Defence publicly credited a 2022 review of Army logistics arrangements for warehousing, maintenance, repair, and overhaul—Project Alexander—as having been conducted collaboratively with the incumbent supplier, Lockheed Martin NZ, and Logistics Command Land.[16]  In other words, major elements of what earlier generations would have recognised as core second- and third-line military functions are now visibly entangled with commercial machinery, market contracts, and prime-contractor relationships. 

Current tendering reinforces the picture. NZDF’s 2025 “Future Hospitality Services” sought a strategic long-term catering and hospitality supplier. Its facilities-maintenance program sought outsourced prime FMS providers across nine camps and bases. Earlier tenders covered rations, industrial and engineering consumables, land transportation services, and other support categories through Defence Commercial Services and syndicated contracts.[17] None of this is unusual by contemporary Western standards. Indeed, it is precisely what many militaries did after the Cold War: capture the peace dividend by shifting routine support into civilian employment and commercial service markets. The problem is not peacetime efficiency. The problem is that efficiency-optimised support chains are often brittle under interruption, scarce lift, airspace closure, and hostile action.

The public record also shows why caution is necessary. NZDF’s 2024 annual report stated that inventories were above budget by NZ$26.6 million because global disruption led the force to hold more inventory as a buffer against uncertainty. That suggests some institutional re-learning after recent supply shocks. The same report also records completion of the Linton Maintenance Support Facility and ongoing work to modernise logistics information systems and clothing/personal-equipment systems.[18] So the fairest judgment is not that New Zealand has embraced a blind “just in time” ideology and owns no buffers. It is that open sources show a logistics system increasingly managed through commercial interfaces and civilianised structures, while offering too little public evidence to prove theatre-depth reserve stocks on the historical model. This raises a practical question. If commercial systems are disrupted and supply chains become contested, to what extent does the Army retain the uniformed personnel, experience, and organisational depth required to assume, manage, and sustain those functions at scale?

Consumables decide endurance

This matters across all classes of supply, but especially for high-turnover consumables. Historically, New Zealand learned the lesson through clothing and boots. A history of postwar combat boots records that wartime stocks delayed change at first, but by the mid-1950s leather-soled boots were proving inadequate in the Malayan jungle, which pushed the Army into research and trials with scientific and industrial partners.[19] The combat-clothing history makes the same point from another angle: older stocks could be mixed with newer garments for a while, but climate, terrain, and theatre requirements steadily forced change.[20] Clothing and footwear are therefore not cosmetic. In wet, abrasive, and tropical environments, they become wear items with replacement rates that differ markedly from those observed in temperate New Zealand conditions.

The modern equivalent is battery demand. U.S. Army reporting has repeatedly described soldiers carrying heavy battery loads for radios, GPS, night-vision devices, optics, and other worn systems; one official article described a 72-hour mission requiring seven battery types weighing 7.3 kg, while another cited a typical figure of more than 9.1 kg. More recent Army reporting indicates that energy demand continues to rise as high-tech soldier systems proliferate.[21] Batteries now sit where boot polish, webbing, Blanco, and extra socks once seemed mundane: they are daily-use items that decide whether a force can communicate, see at night, navigate, and operate sensors and drones. In any contested theatre, batteries become both a tactical enabler and a logistical burden.

The 2026 U.S. reporting underlines the linkage. Even if the Navy’s rebuttal is accepted at face value, family efforts to send food, socks, and similar comfort-or-necessity items tell the same story as New Zealand’s boot trials in Malaya: the “small” high-use things are often the first to become visible when a sustainment system is under strain. Managing these shortfalls is not purely a supply problem. It requires personnel capable of forecasting demand, reallocating scarce resources, and sustaining distribution under pressure.

Policy implications

The historical and contemporary evidence lead to a practical, not nostalgic, conclusion. New Zealand does not need to recreate a 1943 empire of depots. But it does need to ensure that both the systems and the personnel are in place to sustain operations when those systems are under stress.

• First, it should identify a short list of mission-critical consumables for protected stockholding: clothing, boots, batteries, medical supplies, water-production consumables, and selected vehicle spares. The point is not to stock everything deeply; it is to protect the items whose absence rapidly degrades endurance and morale.
• Second, it should rebuild the habit of forward positioning. Historically, that meant London, Maadi, Bourail, Guadalcanal, Singapore, or Darwin. In contemporary terms, it means access arrangements, pre-packed theatre sets, scalable forward storage in allied locations, and clear trigger points for activating them.
• Third, commercial dependence should be made surge-capable rather than merely efficient. Rations, transport, facilities support, freight forwarding, and contractor maintenance can remain contracted, but contracts should include war clauses, regional alternates, rapid lift options, and standards for operating under degraded communications and closed airspace.
• Fourth, organic maintenance and movements capacity should be protected as insurance, not treated as inefficiency. New Zealand’s historical advantage lay not only in holding stock, but in combining stock, movement, recovery, and repair close enough to the user to matter. A contracted peacetime base workshop is not the same thing as deployable maintenance depth.
• Fifth, personnel depth itself should be treated as a capability. This does not necessarily mean large standing increases in force size, but it does require sufficient trained logisticians, across supply, transport, maintenance, and movements, who can expand, assume additional roles, and operate independently when systems degrade. The ability to absorb disruption is not a system property alone; it is a function of people.

Finally, allied integration should be pursued as a force multiplier, but never as a substitute for knowing one’s own requirements. New Zealand’s own history repeatedly shows the pattern: integrated systems in Britain, the Commonwealth occupation in Japan, the Australian base in Vietnam, and ANZUK in Singapore all still required national sub-systems or national accounting. Coalition logistics work best when each partner contributes coherent national support into the larger framework, not when a smaller force simply assumes that someone else will notice and solve its shortages.

Across all of these measures, the common requirement is not simply capability, but capacity, enough trained people to absorb disruption, adapt systems, and keep sustainment functioning when conditions are no longer permissive.

Open questions and limitations

Open-source evidence does not reveal the present deployable stock depth, reserve holdings, or second-line readiness of the New Zealand Army in a way that would support a definitive public assessment. Likewise, historical linkages between specific operational shortfalls and later structural decisions remain, in some cases, inferential rather than conclusive. The 2026 U.S. reporting also remains contested in detail, even as it consistently points to the same underlying reality: sustainment systems under pressure degrade through delay, adaptation, and accumulated friction.

What is clearer is the broader pattern.

The operating environment is shifting toward one in which logistics systems will be contested, disrupted, and forced to adapt under pressure. In such conditions, resilience cannot be measured solely in terms of stockholding, infrastructure, or contractual arrangements. It depends equally on the depth of personnel available to manage, reconfigure, and sustain those systems as conditions deteriorate.

New Zealand’s own history reflects this understanding. From Farringdon Road in 1916, through the base and advanced depots of the Second World War, to Singapore and the forward sustainment arrangements in East Timor, New Zealand repeatedly built systems that combined stock, infrastructure, and sufficient trained personnel to operate them forward, often at distance, and often under pressure.

The contemporary system reflects a different balance, shaped by efficiency, integration, and commercial support.

The question is not whether that system works in permissive conditions. It demonstrably does.

The question is whether it retains sufficient depth, in both structure and people, to adapt and endure when those conditions no longer apply.

If the historical record offers any guidance, it is that resilience has never rested on systems alone. It has depended on the ability to carry capability forward, in stock, in structure, and in people, and to sustain it when conditions are at their most difficult.

Ultimately, resilience in logistics is not only a matter of what is held, or where it is held, but of who is available, and in sufficient depth, to make the system function when it comes under sustained pressure.

Notes

[1] Peter A Scala, “U.S. Logistics Vulnerability: Major Regional Conflict with Iran,” Naval War College no. (1994).

[2] sections on Fifth Fleet combat logistics force support, Bahrain loading, and Jebel Ali repair and readiness activity. Military Sealift Command, “2025 in Review,” USNI News, 16 April 2025, https://news.usni.org/2026/01/21/u-s-navys-military-sealift-command-2025-in-review.

[3] Brendan Rascius, “Morale Is Going to Be at an All-Time Low’: Iran War Troops Living on Meager Rations as Postal Service Stops Delivering,” The Independent, 17 April 2026, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/iran-war-soldiers-food-shortages-mail-b2959960.html.

[4] NDTV World Desk, “US Troops Given Small Food Portions, Nearly Empty Trays on Warships Deployed in Iran Conflict,” NDTV, April 2026, https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-iran-war-us-troops-given-small-food-portions-nearly-empty-trays-on-warships-deployed-in-iran-conflict-11369665.

[5] United States Postal Service, “Mail Service Alerts and Updates,”7 April 2026, https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service-alerts/.

[6] Riley Ceder, “CNO Denies Reports of Poor Food Service Aboard Navy Vessels,” Navy Times, 20 April 2026; Alison Bath, “Navy Having No Problems Feeding Sailors in Middle East, Admiral Says in Denying Reports,” Stars and Stripes, 21April 2026.

[7] Peter A Scala, “U.S. Logistics Vulnerability: Major Regional Conflict with Iran.”

[8] Military Sealift Command, “2025 in Review.”

[9] United States Government Army, Joint Publication JP 4-0 Joint Logistics February 2019 (2019); U.S.G.U. Army, Field Manual FM 4-0 Sustainment Operations July 2019 (Independently Published, 2019).

[10] “New Zealand Ordnance Depot, Farringdon Road, London,” To the Warrior His Arms, History of the Royal New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps and it predecessors, 2021, accessed 1 March, 2026.

[11] “New Zealand Base Ordnance Depot, Egypt and Italy 1940–46,” To the Warrior His Arms, History of the Royal New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps and it predecessors, 2018, accessed 1 March, 2026.

[12] “Reports on NZ Ordnance Depots in the Pacific,,” To the Warrior His Arms, History of the Royal New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps and it predecessors, 2020, accessed 1 March, 2026; Oliver A. Gillespie, The tanks : an unofficial history of the activities of the Third New Zealand Division Tank Squadron in the Pacific (A.H. and A.W. Reed for the Third Division Histories Committee, 1947).

[13] “ANZUK Supply Platoon,” To the Warrior His Arms, History of the Royal New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps and it predecessors, 2017, accessed 20 March, 2026.

[14] New Zealand. Office of the Auditor-General, New Zealand Defence Force: The Civilianisation Project (Office of the Auditor-General, 2013). https://oag.parliament.nz/2013/civilianisation.

[15] New Zealand. Ministry of Defence and New Zealand. Ministry of Defence. Evaluation Division, Defence Industry: Optimising New Zealand Industry Involvement in the New Zealand Defence Sector (Ministry of Defence, 2014). https://www.defence.govt.nz/assets/publications/evaluation-report-10-2014-optimising-nz-industry-involvement-in-the-nz-defence-sector.pdf.

[16] New Zealand Defence Force New Zealand Ministry of Defence, 2022 Awards of Excellence to Industry (Ministry of Defence, 2022). https://www.defence.govt.nz/business-and-industry/industry-awards/2022-awards-of-excellence-to-industry/?stage=Live.

[17] New Zealand Government Electronic Tenders Service, NZDF Land Transportation Services, ( , 2022). ; New Zealand Government Electronic Tenders Service, Industrial and Engineering Consumables,” tender notice ( , 2015). ; New Zealand Government Electronic Tenders Service, Supply of Rations,” tender notice, ( , 2016). ; New Zealand Government Electronic Tenders Service, NZDF Future Hospitality Services,” advance notice for 2025 Request for Proposal ( , 2024). ; New Zealand Government Electronic Tenders Service, NZDF Future Facilities Maintenance,” tender notice ( , 2025). ; New Zealand Defence Force, Annual Report 2024 ( , 2024). .

[18] New Zealand Defence Force, Annual Report 2024.

[19] “New Zealand Army Combat Boots – 1945–1980,” To the Warrior His Arms, History of the Royal New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps and it predecessors, 2022, accessed 20 March, 2026.

[20] “Development of NZ Army Combat Clothing, 1955–1980,” To the Warrior His Arms, History of the Royal New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps and it predecessors, 2023, accessed 20 March, 2026.

[21] “Army R&D energizes battery charging for Soldiers,” U.S. Army, 2021, accessed 20 March, 2026, https://www.army.mil/article/251622/army_rd_energizes_battery_charging_for_soldiers; “Army partners with University of Maryland-led battery consortium,” U.S. Army, 2020, accessed 20 March, 2026, https://www.army.mil/article/240138/army_partners_with_university_of_maryland_led_battery_consortium; “CCDC’s Road Map to Modernizing the Army: Soldier lethality,” U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center, 2020, accessed 20 March, 2026, https://www.dvidshub.net/news/358111/ccdcs-road-map-modernizing-army-soldier-lethality.

ANZAC Day follows a familiar rhythm.
Dawn services. The march. The silence at 11 a.m.

But in 2026, something has changed, not in the ceremony, but in what it represents.

Amendments to the Anzac Day Act 1966 now recognise all New Zealanders who have served in war and warlike operations, regardless of when or where that service occurred. They also acknowledge those whose deaths are connected to service, not only those killed in action, but those lost in training, on operations, or in the years that follow.

This is a quiet but significant shift. It removes the old hierarchy of conflicts and generations and recognises a simple reality: service did not end in 1945. It continues, often out of sight, through modern operations, readiness, and support roles.

It also recognises something long overlooked, not all who serve fall in battle.

Remembrance has tended to focus on the visible, the battlefield and the moment of loss. Gallipoli, the Somme, El Alamein, Cassino. These remain central to our national story.

But they are not the whole story.

Service carries consequences that are not always immediate or visible. Some emerge over time. Some leave no outward mark at all. For many, the real weight of service begins after deployment ends.

There are those who have been lost to that reality, not in theatre, not in uniform, but still because of their service.

If ANZAC Day is to remain meaningful, it must make space for that truth.

The 2026 change reflects a deeper shift, from seeing service as an event to understanding it as a continuum. The uniform may come off, but the experience, and sometimes the damage, remains.

This applies not only to those on operations, but to those who sustain them. The supplier, the mover, the maintainer, the transporter. Always present, rarely visible. From the New Zealand Wars to today, logistics has been a constant, defined not by moments of heroism, but by sustained effort.

“We will remember them” is a powerful phrase. But remembrance cannot be confined to a single day.

The change in law broadens who we remember. The real question is whether we act on it. Do we recognise the experiences of those who have served, and the impact on their families? Do we accept that the cost of service is not always immediate, nor always visible?

Or do we fall back on a simpler story that is easier to commemorate?

ANZAC Day 2026 points towards a more honest form of remembrance. One that includes not just those who fell, but those who lived with the consequences.

The ceremony will endure. It should.

But remembrance must extend beyond it.

Because service does not last a day.
It lasts a lifetime.

Grenades and mortars formed the essential bridge between the individual soldier and organised firepower in the Second World War. Where the rifle provided precision and reach, and artillery delivered massed effect, grenades and mortars filled the critical space in between, enabling infantry to generate explosive force at close and medium range.

For New Zealand, the period from 1941 to 1944 marked a decisive transition. Early reliance on hand-thrown grenades and rifle dischargers gave way to a system increasingly centred on mortars. These weapons provided controlled, repeatable, and responsive firepower at the section and battalion level. This shift was not simply tactical. It reflected the rapid expansion of the Army, the development of local munitions production, and the integration of New Zealand forces into a wider Allied system of supply and operations.

By March 1944, New Zealand’s holdings of grenades and mortar systems clearly illustrate this transformation. What began as a collection of individual weapons had evolved into a coherent, layered support system, one that fundamentally reshaped how infantry fought and how logistics sustained them.

Weapons and Ammunition Holdings

The figures presented here are drawn from the 1944 Quartermaster returns, which detail weapons and ammunition received from overseas and manufactured in New Zealand up to 31 March 1944.[1]

They do not represent total holdings in service. Instead, they reflect the scale of wartime procurement and production, and therefore exclude weapons and ammunition already held by the New Zealand Military Forces prior to mobilisation.

As a result, when compared against pre-war stocks, these quantities should be understood as representing the expansion of capability during the war, rather than the complete inventory on hand.

Mortars

Mortar Ammunition

Grenades and Discharger Systems

Fragmentation Grenades: The Backbone

The No.36M Mills grenade remained the backbone of New Zealand’s grenade inventory, with nearly 3 million held in stock. It was the standard infantry grenade for close combat, trench clearance, and defensive fighting.

Like the 3-inch mortar, the Mills grenade followed a clear trajectory from the First World War into the Second. It had proven its effectiveness in 1914–1918 and was retained in service during the interwar years, forming part of the limited but enduring infantry support capability maintained by the Territorial Force.

Rearmament began modestly. In 1935, an initial order of 640 Mills grenades was placed, followed by a further 2,360 in 1939 as the international situation deteriorated. These early procurements mirror the pattern seen with mortars, small initial steps followed by rapid expansion once war became imminent.

This continuity ensured that, on mobilisation, New Zealand was able to expand an existing and familiar system, rather than introduce an entirely new one.

A key strength of the No.36M was its adaptability. It could be fitted with:

• 4-second fuse for hand throwing
• 7-second fuse for rifle discharger use

This allowed it to function as both a hand grenade and rifle grenade, simplifying logistics while expanding tactical flexibility.

All No.36M grenades were produced in New Zealand during the war, with total output reaching approximately 3 million.[2]

Grenade, hand, No 69 Mk I

New Zealand also held approximately 18,000 No.69 Bakelite grenades, sourced from the United Kingdom. These used an all-ways impact fuze and produced reduced fragmentation, making them more suitable for offensive operations where rapid detonation was required.[3]

Rifle Dischargers: A Transitional Capability

The presence of 6,038 grenade dischargers highlights an important transitional phase in infantry weapons development, bridging the gap between hand-thrown grenades and mortar-based firepower.

Fitted to the muzzle of a rifle, the discharger allowed grenades, most commonly the No.36M fitted with a 7-second fuze, to be projected out to ranges of approximately 150–200 yards. This extended the reach of the infantryman and enabled engagement of targets beyond normal throwing distance, including those behind cover.

Of the total held, 1,125 dischargers were manufactured in New Zealand, with the remainder sourced from overseas.

Associated with these were small holdings of specialised smoke equipment:

• Discharger Smoke Generators (66)
• Discharger Smoke rounds (290)

These limited numbers indicate that smoke delivery via discharger was never developed as a major capability.

Despite their utility, dischargers had clear limitations:

• Single-shot operation, limiting rate of fire
• Reduced accuracy compared to mortars
• Dependence on specialised blank cartridges
• Mechanical strain on rifles

By 1944, these limitations had become decisive. While still held in significant numbers, dischargers were increasingly superseded by the 2-inch mortar, which offered greater range, accuracy, and sustained fire.

Anti-Tank Grenades: Close-Range Solutions

New Zealand held a range of anti-tank grenade types:

No.68 Rifle Grenade

The No.68 rifle grenade was an early-war attempt to give infantry a practical anti-tank capability at section level before dedicated anti-armour weapons became widely available. Fired from a rifle using a discharger cup and a special blank cartridge, it employed a shaped-charge (HEAT) warhead capable of penetrating light armour under favourable conditions. In theory, it allowed infantry to engage armoured vehicles at short range without closing to hand-thrown distance. In practice, however, its effectiveness was limited. Accuracy was inconsistent, range was modest, and its performance against increasingly well-armoured vehicles declined rapidly as the war progressed. It also imposed mechanical strain on rifles and required specific drill and ammunition, adding to the burden on the soldier.

No.74 Sticky Bomb

The No.74 “Sticky Bomb” was an improvised anti-tank grenade developed in response to the urgent need for close-range infantry anti-armour capability in the early years of the war. It consisted of a glass sphere filled with nitroglycerine-based explosive, coated in a strong adhesive and enclosed within a protective metal casing. Once armed, the casing was removed, exposing the adhesive surface, allowing the grenade to be thrown against a vehicle, where it would stick before detonating after a short delay.

In concept, it offered infantry a means of defeating armour by placing an explosive charge directly onto the target. In practice, however, it was hazardous to use. The adhesive could be unreliable, particularly in wet, dusty, or muddy conditions, and there was a real risk of the grenade sticking to the user or failing to adhere to the target. Employment required the soldier to close to extremely short range, often under fire, making it a weapon of last resort.

By 1944, while still held in service, the Sticky Bomb had largely been overtaken by more effective and safer anti-tank weapons. Its continued presence in inventories reflects the urgency of early-war improvisation rather than enduring tactical value

No.75 Hawkins

The No.75 Hawkins grenade was a versatile anti-tank and demolition charge designed to provide infantry with a simple, robust means of defeating vehicles and creating obstacles. Unlike the more hazardous Sticky Bomb, the Hawkins was a flat, rectangular device containing a substantial explosive charge and fitted with a pressure fuze. It could be used in several ways, placed on roads or tracks as an improvised mine, laid against vehicles, or employed as a general-purpose demolition charge.

Its strength lay in this adaptability. It did not require the soldier to attach it to a moving target physically, and its pressure activation made it particularly effective against vehicles passing over it. This made it well-suited to defensive operations, ambushes, and the preparation of anti-tank obstacles. It could also be used to damage infrastructure or equipment where required.

By 1944, the Hawkins grenade remained a useful and widely held system, reflecting its practicality and relative safety compared to earlier improvised anti-tank weapons. While more advanced anti-tank weapons were coming into service, the Hawkins continued to offer a reliable, low-technology solution that could be employed across a range of tactical situations

No.63 rifle smoke grenade

The No.63 rifle smoke grenade reflects an earlier stage in infantry smoke provision.

New Zealand procured these during the interwar period, with 1,806 ordered in 1935 and a further 7,194 in 1939, mirroring efforts to maintain a baseline infantry support capability alongside grenades and mortars.

However, unlike those systems, the No.63 did not transition successfully into the later war environment. By 1943 it had been rendered obsolete, overtaken by the far more effective 2-inch mortar smoke bomb, which provided greater range, repeatable fire, and improved control of smoke effects.

With over 450,000 mortar smoke rounds available, rifle smoke grenades had ceased to be a primary system, and existing stocks were not intended for replacement.

Doctrinal Shift: From Discharger to Mortar

The relationship between the rifle discharger and the 2-inch mortar illustrates a clear doctrinal transition.

Where the discharger extended the reach of the individual soldier, the mortar introduced controlled, repeatable firepower at section level. It allowed commanders to engage targets beyond line of sight, deliver multiple rounds in quick succession, adjust fire based on observation, and integrate smoke, HE, and illumination.

In effect, the mortar replaced individual effort with system-based firepower, marking a fundamental shift in infantry tactics. By 1944, mortars had become central to New Zealand infantry operations.

2-inch Mortar: Section-Level Weapon

With 1,484 mortars on hand, the 2-inch mortar was embedded at section level.

Of these, 579 were manufactured in New Zealand, reflecting a significant domestic contribution.

Supported by large ammunition stocks, the 2-inch mortar provided immediate HE fire, smoke, and illumination, and had effectively replaced the rifle grenade as the infantry’s primary close-support weapon.

3-inch Mortar: Battalion Fire Support

The 3-inch mortar, with 1,688 weapons on hand, formed the backbone of battalion-level indirect fire support.

Of these, 488 were produced in New Zealand, with the majority imported.

Importantly, the Ordnance ML 3-inch mortar did not emerge in isolation. It replaced the earlier 3-inch Stokes mortar, which had served New Zealand effectively during the First World War and was retained in limited use during the interwar period, particularly within Territorial battalion support platoons.

Efforts to rebuild this capability began before the outbreak of war. Sixteen 3-inch mortars were ordered between 1935 and 1937, followed by a further 20 in 1939, reflecting growing recognition of the importance of indirect fire support.

These early procurements provided the foundation for rapid wartime expansion. A key advantage of the system was that modern 3-inch mortar ammunition was designed to function in both the ML and earlier Stokes mortars, ensuring continuity and allowing older weapons to remain in use for training and secondary roles.

With ammunition holdings including over 643,000 HE rounds, the 3-inch mortar system supported sustained fire support, area suppression, and the neutralisation of enemy positions.

60-mm Mortar: Allied Integration and Pre–Lend-Lease Procurement

The 24 M2 60-mm mortars held by New Zealand in 1944 represent a small and ultimately transitional capability within the wider development of infantry firepower.

Acquired in 1942 under urgent conditions, their introduction reflects a period when New Zealand was still adapting to wartime expansion.

From the outset, the 60-mm mortar was tied primarily to Pacific operations. The weapons were issued to the Fiji Defence Force, where they formed part of New Zealand’s regional defence commitments. In this role, they provided a useful but limited close-support capability.

However, as the strategic situation evolved, so too did their employment. With the withdrawal and redeployment of New Zealand forces from Fiji, the mortars were returned to New Zealand. They were issued to Northern Military District Home Defence units, where they filled a niche role within a largely static defensive framework.

This redistribution is significant. It reflects the system’s position on the margins of New Zealand’s ordnance structure. While sufficient for local defence and training purposes, the 60-mm mortar did not align with the standardised British-pattern systems that were becoming dominant across the Army.

Unlike the 2-inch and 3-inch mortars, which were embedded at section and battalion level and supported by established doctrine, training, and supply arrangements, the 60-mm mortar remained limited in scale and application. Early consideration was given to expanding the capability, but this was quickly abandoned, with existing holdings deemed sufficient for requirements. As Lend-Lease supplies matured, the advantages of standardisation became decisive. British-pattern mortars offered commonality of equipment, ammunition, and training across the force, while the 60-mm system remained logistically distinct and operationally isolated.

Production and Supply Context

The broader system reinforces the scale of effort:

• Over 7 million bombs and grenades handled
• Approximately 3½ million from local production
• Mortars, dischargers, and ammunition all saw partial domestic manufacture alongside large-scale imports

New Zealand’s approach was pragmatic:

• Produce what could be scaled locally
• Import complex and specialised systems

Conclusion: A Layered System of Firepower

By MarBy March 1944, New Zealand had developed a coherent and layered infantry support system:

• Grenades for immediate, close combat
• Rifle dischargers as a transitional extension of the individual soldier
• 2-inch mortars providing responsive firepower at the section level
• 3-inch mortars delivering sustained support at platoon and battalion levels

What is most striking is not simply the presence of these systems, but the way they evolved. Many, such as the Mills grenade and Stokes-derived mortar, traced their lineage back to the First World War, were retained in limited form during the interwar years, and then rapidly expanded and modernised as New Zealand mobilised for war.

The decisive transformation was the shift from individual, manually delivered effects to controlled, repeatable, and coordinated firepower systems, with mortars at the centre. This marked a fundamental change in how infantry generated combat power, moving from isolated actions to integrated, scalable effects across the battlefield.

Equally significant was the transformation behind the front line. At the outbreak of war, New Zealand was largely a beneficiary of externally supplied military equipment. By 1944, it had become an active contributor, producing large quantities of grenades, mortar bombs, and selected weapons domestically. This shift did not eliminate reliance on overseas supply, but it reduced vulnerability, increased resilience, and enabled participation in the wider Allied supply system.

This was not merely an increase in quantity. It was the emergence of a mature, adaptable, and partially self-sustaining combat system, underpinned by a logistics organisation capable of expanding production, integrating Allied supply, and sustaining operations at scale. In this, New Zealand’s experience reflects a broader wartime reality: success depended not only on weapons but on the systems that supported, supplied, and evolved them.

Notes

[1] “Appendices to Report on QMG (Quartermaster-General’s) Branch,” Archives New Zealand Item No R25541151  (30 June 1944), .

[2] “Hand grenades, general – August 1942 – June 1945,” Archives New Zealand Item No R6280793  (1941-1944).

[3] “Appendices to Report on QMG (Quartermaster-General’s) Branch.”

[4] “Guns – Mortars – 60mm, purchase of equipment,” Archives New Zealand Item No R22442139  (1942-1970).

The Influence of Indian Army Ordnance Experience on the RNZAOC, 1947–1950

In the immediate post-war years, the Royal New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps (RNZAOC) entered a period of transition. Wartime expansion gave way to peacetime contraction, and the Corps, like the wider New Zealand Army, was required to redefine itself outside the framework of a global imperial system.

Yet, at precisely this moment, the RNZAOC received an understated but important reinforcement, the arrival of experienced ordnance personnel from the disbanding structures of the British Indian Army.

This was not a formal transfer scheme, nor a large intake. But what the Corps gained was not numbers, it was experience at scale.

The Indian Army Ordnance Corps in Context

The Indian Army Ordnance Corps (IAOC) operated within one of the most complex military systems of the Second World War. It sustained a force composed of multiple races, languages, and religions, each with distinct requirements for food, clothing, and equipment.[1]

For the ordnance system, this complexity translated directly into supply:

• multiple ration systems aligned to religious dietary laws
• specialist clothing and equipment scales reflecting cultural requirements
• dispersed supply chains operating across jungle, desert, and mountain terrain
• integration of mechanised transport with animal systems, including camels, bullock carts, and elephants

The IAOC’s role was to provide “the thousand and one different items required by a modern army in the field.”[2]

This was not a system built on neat standardisation. It was a system built on adaptation, scale, and control under pressure.

When India gained independence in 1947, that system fractured. British and Dominion personnel were discharged or repatriated. Some chose to continue their service elsewhere in the Commonwealth. A number came to New Zealand.

Transfers into the RNZAOC

Between 1947 and 1948, a small but significant cohort of former Indian Army personnel entered the RNZAOC, bringing with them experience from one of the largest ordnance systems of the Second World War. These included:

• Percy Hardie Murray Galbraith, late Lieutenant Colonel, Indian Army, appointed Temporary Major on 3 March 1948[3]
• Derek Evelyn Albert Roderick, late Major Indian Army, appointed Lieutenant (on probation) with seniority from 27 May 1942, effective 20 February 1948[4]
• John Francis Finn, late Major, Indian Army) appointed Captain (on prob:), with seniority from 3rd February 1944.[5]
• Henry Partridge White (late Major, Indian Army) appointed temp Captain (on prob.), with seniority from 12th January 1944, and posted for duty to the Main Ordnance Depot, Trentham on 12 January 1948.[6]
• Clifford Arthur Penny (late Major, Indian Army) appointed temp Captain (on prob.), with seniority from 3 February.[7]
• Austin Whitehead (late Captain, Indian Army) appointed temp Captain (on prob.), with seniority from 3 February 1948.[8]
• Gerald Norman Weston (late Captain, Indian Army) appointed temp Captain (on prob.), and posted for duty to Ordnance Section, Northern Military District, Auckland on 15 January 1948.[9]
• Alfred Wesseldine, attested 4 March 1948 as Substantive Warrant Officer Class II (Temporary Warrant Officer Class I), posted to the Main Ordnance Depot, Trentham[10]
• Patrick William Rennison, former Indian Army officer, was appointed Officer Commanding No. 2 Ordnance Depot, Linton in 1948, assuming responsibility for a key regional ordnance node within the Central Military District[11]

This initial intake was reinforced in the following years by additional former Indian Army Ordnance Corps personnel and those with service across the wider imperial ordnance system, including:

• R. T. Marriott, who joined the RNZAOC in 1949 and later served as Chief Ammunition Technical Officer[12]
• J. H. Doone, who transferred via the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and joined the RNZAOC in 1952, later also serving as Chief Ammunition Technical Officer[13]

Collectively, this group represents more than a series of individual transfers. It reflects the movement of experienced ordnance officers and senior non-commissioned officers from the disbanding imperial system into the RNZAOC, bringing with them capability across depot command, ammunition technical services, and stores administration at a critical point in the Corps’ post-war development.

Voices from the Field: Experience Carried Across the Empire

Major R. T. Marriott – Ammunition Expertise at the Highest Level

Major R. T. Marriott’s career illustrates the technical depth carried into the RNZAOC. After service with the Irish Guards and the Gurkhas, he joined the IAOC in 1943 before transferring to New Zealand in 1949.

His first appointment at Trentham as depot inspecting ordnance officer placed him at the centre of the Army’s ammunition system. He later became Chief Ammunition Technical Officer at Army Headquarters, responsible for the inspection, testing, and proving of all ammunition used by the New Zealand Army.

Major J. H. Doone – Continuity Across Imperial Systems

Major J. H. Doone’s career reflects the broader movement across imperial and Commonwealth ordnance systems. After service with British infantry units, he transferred to the IAOC during the war and later moved through the Royal Army Ordnance Corps before joining the RNZAOC in 1952.

By the end of his career, he too held the position of Chief Ammunition Technical Officer, reinforcing the pattern of IAOC-trained personnel occupying key technical roles within the New Zealand Army.

Alfred ‘Wes’ Wesseldine – Building the Post-War System

Wesseldine represents the clearest example of IAOC experience translated directly into RNZAOC capability.

Enlisting in 1932 with the Lincolnshire Regiment, Wesseldine served in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and India, where he was employed as an instructor and qualified in both education and Urdu, before transferring to the IAOC in 1939. In the IAOC, he served in key wartime appointments across India, Iraq, Persia, and the Persian Gulf. As a Stores Branch Sergeant, Base Ordnance Warrant Officer, and later Ordnance Sub-Conductor, he operated within Line of Communication systems sustaining major formations.

Mentioned in despatches, he later held senior depot and staff appointments before being compulsorily retired following Indian independence. Arriving in New Zealand in 1948, he joined the RNZAOC and was posted to Trentham.

Placed in charge of the Motor Transport Sub-Depot, he centralised spare parts supply and improved system efficiency across Army and RNZAF support elements. His later appointments as Regimental Sergeant Major of the Main Ordnance Depot, Trentham Camp, and the RNZAOC School saw him shape training, standards, and professional culture across the Corps for more than a decade.

Patrick William Rennison – From System Rebuild to Operational Service

Rennison’s career demonstrates how IAOC-derived experience translated into both command and operational effectiveness within the RNZAOC.

Appointed Officer Commanding No. 2 Ordnance Depot at Linton in 1948, he assumed responsibility for a key node in New Zealand’s post-war ordnance system. Linton controlled a dispersed network of sub-depots, including ammunition facilities, vehicle depots, and general stores across the Central Military District.

Under his command, the unit was redesignated as the Central Districts Ordnance Depot, reflecting the RNZAOC’s transition to a regional sustainment structure aligned to peacetime requirements.

Rennison later served with K Force during the Korean War, one of a small group of RNZAOC officers deployed to sustain New Zealand and Commonwealth forces in theatre. His career thus spans the full arc of post-war development, from reconstruction of the domestic ordnance system to renewed operational deployment.

Experience at Scale

What these men brought was not simply experience, but experience of a different order.

They had operated in systems where:

• supply chains stretched across continents
• multiple transport methods, mechanised and non-mechanised, had to be integrated
• cultural and environmental factors directly shaped sustainment
• failure in supply had immediate operational consequences

New Zealand’s wartime experience had exposed the RNZAOC to elements of this complexity, but often within a larger British framework. In the post-war environment, those responsibilities increasingly rested within New Zealand’s own institutions.

These men had already operated at that level, and understood both the demands and the risks.

Influence within the Corps

The influence of IAOC-trained personnel was not delivered through doctrine or formal reform. It was embedded through practice.

At Trentham and Linton, the Corps’ primary centres of gravity, experienced personnel applied that knowledge to:

• Reorganising depot structures
• enforcing stores accounting discipline
• developing training systems
• setting professional expectations

Rennison’s command at Linton and Wesseldine’s influence at Trentham illustrate how this experience was embedded across both structural and training nodes.

Their impact was cumulative. As those trained under them moved through the Corps, the standards they established spread with them.

This is how institutional knowledge transfers, not through documents, but through people.

Reinforcing Professional Identity

The late 1940s were formative years for the RNZAOC as a peacetime corps. Without the urgency of war, the challenge was to maintain standards and preserve capability. What IAOC veterans contributed was not just experience, but perspective. They reinforced the understanding that ordnance was not an administrative function, but a core component of operational effectiveness.

At the same time, their presence maintained continuity with the wider Commonwealth ordnance tradition at a moment when the imperial system that had sustained it was dissolving. In doing so, they helped shape the professional identity of the RNZAOC in its transition from wartime expansion to a smaller, but more self-reliant, force.

Conclusion

The transfer of personnel from the Indian Army into the RNZAOC was modest in scale but significant in effect. At a critical moment in the Corps’ development, these men brought experience drawn from one of the most demanding logistical systems of the Second World War. They reinforced standards, shaped training, and contributed directly to the professionalisation of the RNZAOC in the early Cold War era.

By the early 1950s, that influence was already visible. The same Corps that had absorbed IAOC experience in the late 1940s was now deploying to Korea as part of K Force, operating once again within a Commonwealth framework, and doing so with a level of professionalism that owed much to those earlier transfers.

Their legacy is not found in a single reform or directive, but in the standards they set and the system they helped build. In that sense, the post-war RNZAOC was not created in isolation. It was, in part, inherited.

Footnotes

[1] “The Indian Army,” Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 67, , 20 March 1945, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19450320.2.21.

[2] “The Indian Army.”

[3] “Appointments, Promotions, Transfers, and Resignations, of Officers of the New Zealand Army “, New Zealand Gazette No 18 (Wellington), 8 April 1948, , https://www.austlii.edu.au/nz/other/nz_gazette/1948/18.pdf.

[4] “Appointments, Promotions, Transfers, and Resignations, of Officers of the New Zealand Army “.

[5] “Appointments, Promotions, Transfers, and Resignations, of Officers of the New Zealand Army “, New Zealand Gazette No 10 (Wellington), 19 Feb 1948, , https://www.austlii.edu.au/nz/other/nz_gazette/1948/10/7.pdf.

[6] “Appointments, Promotions, Transfers, and Resignations, of Officers of the New Zealand Army “, New Zealand Gazette No 4 (Wellington), 23 January 1948, , https://www.nzlii.org/nz/other/nz_gazette/1948/4.pdf.

[7] “Appointments, Promotions, Transfers, and Resignations, of Officers of the New Zealand Army “.

[8] “Appointments, Promotions, Transfers, and Resignations, of Officers of the New Zealand Army “.

[9] “Appointments, Promotions, Transfers, and Resignations, of Officers of the New Zealand Army “.

[10] “NZAOC June 1947 to May 1948,” To the Warrior His Arms, History of the Royal New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps and it predecessors, 2017, accessed 1 March, 2026, https://rnzaoc.com/2017/07/10/rnzaoc-june-1947-to-may-1948/.

[11] McKie, “NZAOC June 1947 to May 1948.”; “Ordnance in the Manawatu 1915 – 1996,” To the Warrior His Arms, History of the Royal New Zeland Army Ordnance Corps and it predecessors, 2020, accessed 14 November 2024, 2024, https://rnzaoc.com/2020/12/21/ordnance-in-the-manawatu-1915-1996/.

[12] “Thirty-One Years’ Service Ended,” Evening Post, 9 May 1962, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19620509.2.76; Major J.S Bolton, A History of the Royal New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps (Trentham: RNZAOC, 1992).

[13] “Plunket Society’s New Secretary,” Evening Post, 4 September 1963, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19630904.2.70.9.;Bolton, A History of the Royal New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps.

Is it time for New Zealand to rethink ammunition production?

n the mid-1880s, New Zealand found itself in a familiar position: isolated, strategically exposed, and reliant on distant supply chains for its defence needs.

The “Russian Scare” of the period sharpened that awareness. There was a growing recognition that, in the event of conflict, the long lines of communication to Britain could not be assumed secure. Ammunition, the most fundamental requirement of any military force, was entirely imported. If those supply lines were disrupted, New Zealand’s ability to defend itself would be constrained not by strategy or manpower, but by the number of rounds remaining in store.

It was in that environment that Major John Whitney made a decision that, at the time, must have appeared both ambitious and uncertain. Rather than accept dependence, he established Whitney & Sons in Auckland, which became the Colonial Ammunition Company in 1888, the first serious attempt to manufacture ammunition in New Zealand and Australasia.[1]

Whitney’s decision was not merely industrial, it was strategic. It reflected a clear understanding that logistics is not simply about distribution, but about ensuring supply exists at all. His factory did not make New Zealand self-sufficient, but it created optionality. It reduced vulnerability. It marked a shift from passive dependence to limited industrial agency.[2]

That pattern, capability built under pressure and allowed to contract in its absence, recurs throughout New Zealand’s military history. The Colonial Ammunition Company expanded during the Second World War to support the Allied war effort, but even at its peak, it remained part of a wider industrial system rather than a fully sovereign capability. In the decades that followed, as global supply chains stabilised and cost pressures increased, domestic production declined, and reliance on overseas supply resumed.

For much of the post-Cold War period, that reliance appeared rational. It is now being tested.

The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have exposed the fragility of modern ammunition supply chains. Demand has surged, stockpiles have been depleted, and production capacity for key inputs has struggled to keep pace.[3] What was once a background industrial process has become a strategic constraint.

This brings us back to a question that would have been immediately recognisable to Whitney: What happens when supply cannot be assumed?

At the centre of this issue lies nitrocellulose, or guncotton, a critical component in modern propellants. Without it, ammunition production slows regardless of downstream manufacturing capacity.[4] Traditionally, nitrocellulose has been derived from cotton linters, a relatively specialised and geographically constrained raw material. However, an alternative pathway has long been recognised.

As early as 1915, reports noted that German chemists were experimenting with wood pulp as a substitute for cotton in the manufacture of explosives, overcoming challenges associated with impurities and processing.[5] Subsequent research and patents have confirmed that nitrocellulose can be produced from wood-derived cellulose, broadening the potential raw material base for propellant manufacture.[6]

What has changed is not the underlying chemistry, but the strategic context.

States with significant forestry industries are now reassessing whether they are exporting low-value raw materials while importing high-value, strategically critical derivatives. Canada has explored establishing domestic capacity for nitrocellulose production to address supply vulnerabilities.[7] Finland has similarly examined the potential of its pulp industry to contribute to ammunition supply chains.[8]

This raises a contemporary question with historical resonance: If Major John Whitney had the foresight in the 1880s to establish an ammunition industry in New Zealand, is it time for New Zealand to consider leveraging its forestry sector to support the production of wood-cellulose-based energetic materials?

At a structural level, the alignment is evident. New Zealand maintains a substantial forestry sector, generating significant export revenue and producing large volumes of wood and pulp, much of it exported in relatively low-value forms.[9] Converting part of that output into higher-value, strategically relevant products offers a potential pathway to both economic and defence benefits.

However, the technical and industrial barriers are non-trivial.

While wood pulp can be used to produce nitrocellulose, the process requires cellulose of sufficiently high purity, typically by removing lignin, hemicellulose, and other impurities beyond what standard pulping processes achieve.[10] This generally necessitates the production of specialised “dissolving pulp,” which requires additional chemical processing, lower yields, and purpose-built industrial facilities.[11] In practical terms, this means that conventional pulp mills cannot simply be repurposed for explosive manufacture without significant modification or parallel infrastructure.

The implication is clear. This is not an incremental adjustment to existing industry, but a deliberate industrial decision involving capital investment, regulatory development, and long-term commitment.

There are, therefore, broader considerations. Questions of scale, cost, environmental constraints, and strategic intent all come into play. New Zealand must decide whether it seeks full self-sufficiency, niche contribution to allied supply chains, or simply a degree of resilience against disruption.

What history suggests, however, is that waiting for a crisis to force such decisions is rarely efficient.

Whitney did not act in wartime. He acted in anticipation of vulnerability. That is the enduring lesson.

Over the past three decades, New Zealand has benefited from a relatively stable strategic environment. Defence investment has been constrained, industrial capacity has been allowed to narrow, and global supply chains have been assumed to function reliably. Those assumptions are now under increasing strain.

The question is whether New Zealand is prepared to recognise that shift early enough to respond deliberately, rather than reactively.

This is not an argument for immediate industrial expansion. It is, however, an argument for serious consideration. The intersection of forestry, chemistry, and defence supply chains presents a potential opportunity, but one that must be understood in technical, economic, and strategic terms.

At its core, this is not simply a discussion about explosives or pulp.

It is a question of position.

Whether New Zealand remains a consumer at the end of extended supply chains, or, where it makes sense, chooses to move further up those chains and shape its own resilience.

Whitney answered that question in his time.

We may be approaching the point where it must be answered again.

Footnotes

[1] “Ammunition Technician Origins,” To the Warrior His Arms, History of the Royal New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps and it predecessors, 2017, accessed 1 March, 2026, https://rnzaoc.com/2017/12/14/ammunition-technician-origins/.

[2] McKie, “Ammunition Technician Origins.”

[3] SooToday David Helwig, “Could This Explosives Manufacturing Plant Be in the Sault’s Future?” ” Northern Ontario Business. 2026, https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/industry-news/manufacturing/could-this-explosives-manufacturing-plant-be-in-the-saults-future-11920909.

[4] Tadeusz Urbanski, Chemistry and technology of explosives (1964).

[5] “Cotton Largely Used in Making of Explosives: Germany Finds Substitute,” Bay of Plenty Times, 12 August 1915, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19150812.2.11.11.4.

[6] “Preparation Method of Nitrocellulose from Wood Pulp.” CN102219861B. ,” Google Patents, 2026, accessed  https://patents.google.com/patent/CN102219861B/en.

[7] David Helwig, “Could This Explosives Manufacturing Plant Be in the Sault’s Future?”

[8] “Finnish Pulp to Solve Shortage of Ammunition in Ukraine.” ” Forest.fi, 2024, accessed  https://forest.fi/article/finnish-pulp-to-solve-shortage-of-ammunition-in-ukraine/.

[9] “Forestry and Wood Processing Statistics,” Ministry for Primary Industries, updated 20 March 2026, 2026, accessed  https://www.mpi.govt.nz/forestry/forest-industry-and-workforce/forestry-wood-processing-data.

[10] Urbanski, Chemistry and technology of explosives.

[11] Chunxia Chen et al., “Cellulose (dissolving pulp) manufacturing processes and properties: A mini-review,” BioResources 11, no. 2 (2016).

From Ordnance Craft to Artificer Mastery

The crossed hammer and pincers, often referred to as the “hammer and tongs,” is one of the oldest and most enduring symbols of technical service in the New Zealand Army. Its history reflects more than a century of change in military organisation, moving from a craft-based system of trades to a professionalised and qualification-driven technical corps. In that evolution, the badge itself did not remain static. Rather, its meaning shifted from a simple indicator of trade to a recognised mark of technical mastery.

The origins of the badge in New Zealand can be traced to the arrival of British Army Ordnance Corps armourers at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1901, Armourer Sergeants Bertram Buckley and John Hunter were recruited to support the developing New Zealand military system, followed shortly after by Armourer Sergeant William Edward Luckman.[1]  These men brought with them a long-established British tradition in which armourers, blacksmiths, and artificers formed the technical backbone of the Army.

Their work extended well beyond routine maintenance. In addition to sustaining weapons and equipment, they played a central role in training the first locally raised armourers and embedding the trade within the New Zealand forces as a recognised military function. By 1911, Luckman, whose secondment had been extended several times, was firmly established as Chief Armourer of the New Zealand Military Forces, overseeing inspection, maintenance, and repair activities across workshops in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. Although serving in New Zealand, these men remained members of the Army Ordnance Corps and were required to maintain their professional proficiency, ensuring that New Zealand practice remained aligned with British standards.

Although the badge was already in use within the wider British military system, it did not formally appear in New Zealand dress regulations until 1912, when it was codified as part of the official system of distinguishing trade badges.[2] This reflects a broader pattern in early New Zealand military development, where established practice was often formalised only after it had become embedded.

The formalisation of the badge in New Zealand dress regulations reveals how its role evolved, as shown below:

As locally trained armourers developed under Luckman’s supervision, the need for a formal structure became increasingly apparent. This was addressed through General Order 118 of 1 May 1912, which established the New Zealand Ordnance Corps and provided a defined career pathway from apprentice to Armourer Sergeant Major.[3] At the same time, regimental armourers remained within their parent units, creating a dual system that balanced centralised expertise with unit-level support. The scope of the trade was already expanding, extending beyond small arms to include bicycle maintenance and even the maintenance of New Zealand’s first military aircraft, the Blériot monoplane Britannia.

Within this early system, the hammer-and-pincers badge served as a straightforward trade identifier. Dress regulations from 1912 and 1923 show that it was worn by armourers, machinery artificers, and smiths across multiple ranks, from privates through to warrant officers.[4] Its placement on the sleeve, above chevrons for non-commissioned officers and below rank badges for warrant officers, reinforced its role as a marker of function rather than status. In this context, the badge simply identified the soldier as a skilled tradesman, part of a wider system of craft specialisations that included farriers, wheelwrights, and saddlers.

Contemporary regulations demonstrate that the badge was not confined to a single trade, but applied across a wide range of technical roles:

During the interwar period, the badge’s meaning began to evolve. As military equipment became more complex, the role of the artificer emerged as a distinct and increasingly important technical appointment. The hammer and pincers became more closely associated with these higher-level trades and senior technical roles, although this association remained informal. The badge continued to denote employment and function rather than qualification, and it was still worn broadly across the technical workforce.

The formation of the New Zealand Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (NZEME) during the Second World War marked a further stage in this evolution. Technical trades were consolidated into a single corps, and training systems became more structured. Within the post-war Royal New Zealand Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (RNZEME), the hammer and pincers took on an additional layer of meaning, reflecting not only trade identity but also a shared professional culture. This was captured in later descriptions of the corps as a body of “warrior craftsmen,” linking modern technicians to a long lineage of armourers and artisans.[5]

By 1960, the badge had been formally defined within New Zealand Army dress regulations as a badge of appointment for RNZEME Sergeants and Staff Sergeants, worn irrespective of trade or qualification.[6] Its function at this stage was clearly aligned with the corps’ identity and rank rather than with technical distinction.

At the same time, the Army considered a broader initiative to introduce trade badges across all corps. As part of this proposal, it was suggested that all RNZEME trades, across all ranks, be authorised to wear the hammer and pincers as a universal trade badge. This would have effectively returned the badge to its earlier role as a general identifier of technical function. The proposal was not adopted, largely due to cost, and the Army retained its existing approach, favouring a simplified system based on corps and rank rather than trade differentiation.

From the late 1960s, however, a different dynamic emerged within RNZEME itself. The Artificer Course had become the recognised benchmark of professional excellence within the corps, mirroring developments in both British REME and the Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, where artificer status represented the highest level of technical competence short of commissioning. Selection for the course was rigorous, involving formal boards and demanding assessments of both technical and personal qualities. An artificer was defined as a higher technician who, in addition to proven trade skills, possessed the ability to lead, train, advise, and coordinate at a high level.[7]

Formally, the badge remained a corps badge worn by all RNZEME Sergeants and Staff Sergeants. In reality, it was increasingly associated with those who had attained artificer status, particularly within the corps’ culture and internal recognition systems. By the early 1970s, this divergence prompted RNZEME to propose a formal change, seeking to restrict the badge to those who had successfully completed the Artificer Course. The intention was to align official entitlement with professional reality, recognising the badge as a symbol of technical mastery rather than simply a corps identifier. The proposal was not approved.[8] The Army maintained its long-standing position that the hammer and pincers were primarily a corps insignia, and that introducing qualification-based badges risked creating a broader system of trade distinctions across the Army.

Despite this, the underlying trend could not be entirely contained. By the mid-1980s, the hammer and pincers had been formally adopted within RNZEME as an artificer qualification badge.[9] This brought policy into line with the practice that had already developed within the corps. From that point, the badge clearly signified not merely affiliation with RNZEME, but the attainment of advanced technical proficiency and leadership within the maintenance system.

The evolution of the badge can be summarised as a transition from a broad trade identifier to a symbol of technical mastery:

This evolution was not unique to New Zealand. Across the Commonwealth, the hammer and pincers followed a similar trajectory, originating as a general tradesman’s badge before becoming associated with artificers and eventually formalised as a qualification insignia. In each case, the badge reflected broader changes in military organisation, particularly the transition from craft-based systems to a professional technical corps.

The legacy of this development continues within the Royal New Zealand Army Logistic Regiment (RNZALR). Following the integration of RNZEME into RNZALR in 1996, the traditions and professional standards of the technical trades were retained within a unified logistic structure. Today, upon successful completion of the RNZALR Artificer Course, qualified maintainers are entitled to wear the hammer and pincers as the RNZALR Artificer Badge, formally recognising their advanced technical training and professional competence.

The history of the hammer and pincers badge is not simply the story of a piece of insignia. It is a reflection of how the New Zealand Army has understood, organised, and recognised technical expertise over time. From its origins as a practical trade identifier, through its gradual association with the artificer, to its formal adoption as a qualification badge, the symbol charts a clear transition from craft to profession.

What makes the badge distinctive is not that its meaning changed, but that it accumulated meaning. It has remained rooted in the craftsman’s identity, even as the system around it shifted towards structured training, formal selection, and professional recognition. In this sense, the badge represents continuity as much as change.

Today, within the RNZALR, the hammer and pincers endure as the Artificer Badge, awarded to those who have demonstrated advanced technical proficiency and leadership. Its modern meaning is therefore inseparable from its past. It still speaks to the same underlying idea that defined its earliest use:

The effectiveness of an army depends not only on those who fight, but on those who possess the skill, judgement, and discipline to maintain it.

Footnotes

[1] “Luckman, William Edward,” Personal File, Archives New Zealand (Wellington) 1902, https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE21154244.

[2] New Zealand Military Forces Dress Regulations, ed. New Zealand Military Forces (Wellington, 1912). https://rnzaoc.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/1923-nz-army-dress-regs.pdf.

[3] NZ Armourers, New Zealand Military Forces, General Order 118/12, (Wellington, 1 May 1912). .

[4] New Zealand Military Forces Dress Regulations, ed. New Zealand Military Forces (Wellington, 1923). https://rnzaoc.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/1923-nz-army-dress-regs.pdf.

[5] Peter Cooke, Warrior Craftsmen, RNZEME 1942-1996 (Wellington: Defense of New Zealand Study Group, 2017).

[6] “Clothing – Dress Embellishments: General 1960-1976,” Archives New Zealand No R17187826  (1960).

[7] Cooke, Warrior Craftsmen, RNZEME 1942-1996.

[8] “Clothing – Dress Army Committee – Reports etc,” Archives New Zealand No R9753141  (1954-1973).

[9] Malcolm Thomas and Cliff Lord, New Zealand Army distinguishing patches, 1911-1991 (Wellington, N.Z. : M. Thomas and C. Lord, 1995, 1995), Bibliographies, Non-fiction.